Introduction After much research, I took the plunge in February 2005 by buying the Sony Cybershot P200. Compared with my film SLR camera, it's very light and delivers much sharper results. Mounted on a Tripod, this seven megapixel camera captures a scene with a sharpness that I simply find astonishing. With a 512MB memory stick and a long battery life, I've taken the camera to Norway in summer twice and only used up half the battery life after taking 170 photos in the space of 10 days. Performance in winter time is also good. I took the camera to Arctic Norway in March, where temperatures ranged from freezing point to -15. The camera still worked as advertised with a healthy amount of battery drain. Much good has been said about this camera.
But, despite all the positives, it has a number of minuses too. The biggest issue for me is the lack of dynamic range. Basically, if you correctly expose for a bright sky, the ground comes out too dark. Likewise if you correctly expose for the ground, the sky becomes blown out. It's a big issue for me, as mountain scenes are often very contrasty. When compared with the results from my slides, the pictures often disappoint. I've also found that colour saturation isn't as good as what I see with my eye, and the widest angle for the lens is 38mm in full frame terms. Many users (though not myself) complain of dust getting inside onto the sensor as well as some users reporting blurry images - a serious issue - and not helped by reportedly poor after sales service. Sony, get your act together!
 Good sillouette composure Despite all my misgivings about the camera, it's still very good. Cloudy scenes come out very well indeed as these don't have so much contrast. Snowy scenes also please the camera and if you accept the cameras limitations for what they are, you can get some excellent sillouette shots as well. However, if you're only in the market for a compact camera, I'd recommend the Canon Powershot S70. For starters, it has a better dynamic range and a wider angle lens. It's downside is that it's slightly more expensive and suffers from purple fringing at the wide and telephoto end of the zoom settings. Enter SLR cameras. For starters, the sensors on SLR cameras are a lot bigger. Each pixel on the sensor is bigger and is able to capture more light. This is good for improved dynamic range. You can capture a bigger range between highlight and shadow. Also, for the same reason, there's less noise. Canon's SLR cameras have had rave reviews about being able to capture images at high ISO settings with very little noise. On top of that, the lenses are bigger and therefore less likely to suffer from effects like Chromatic Aberration - a serious problem with some compact cameras. The main disadvantage with digital SLR cameras over their film counterparts is dust. With film cameras, each frame was exposed to a potentially dusty environment for a very brief time only. On digital SLRs, the sensor is exposed to dust each time you change a lens. Because dust is cumulative, you'll eventually have to clean the sensor. Some manufacturers can get sensors cleaned using sonic wave technology much innovation is going on here. Overall, with the exception of those who are financially hard up, there's now no excuse to not move over to digital. You can simply fire off shots on a whim, without the consequence of expensive film processing. Hopefully we all will have richer memories and become better photographers in the process. |
